Final Strings to Cut
by XarluLunete
Summary: After all of the fighting that they had done, that he had done, they still managed to fail. At least he was able to cut the puppet's strings, one way or another. (AU, blood, gore, characters deaths. Yes, you read right, I'm using plurals, rated M to be safe, might bump it to T)


**Aaand I'm back with another story. Wow, it's been forever since I've written a story that had Axel and Roxas in it. Whelp, I guess you could say I'm going back to my roots. *shrugs***

**This is a teaser of sorts for another story that I'm going to be putting up soon; the events of Final Strings actually takes place during the end and after the main story. Does it makes sense that I'm posting things backwards? No. Do things ever _really_ make sense when it comes to Kingdom Hearts? Eventually, but it takes a while before two and two can be put together.**

**Yes. This is definitely my excuse, sticking to it one-hundred-per-freaking-_cent_.**

**Oh, before I forget, this story actually has a beta guys: the wonderful and awesome Star-Shaped-χ! **

**(Psst, go check out his stories. He doesn't have very many, but they're very well written. 10/10, does recommend. :3)**

**Okay, couple more things left- It's five in the morning and for some freaking reason I'm hyper as all frick despite having _no_ sleep.**

**Disclaimer (I think we need to do these, I'm not sure I see them in nearly every story and I don't wanna get in trouble so whoop): Sadly, I don't own Kingdom Hearts. None of the awesome characters nor the plot that takes your heart and makes it all happy and fluffy and then_ crushes it by using your own feelings against you _(ahem) are not mine.**

_**WARNING:**_** This story contains details of blood, gore, and character deaths (homicide and suicide). If this bothers anyone, leave this page now.**

* * *

When he saw Axel trip near him to snatch his gun off of the floor and saw sharp green eyes meet his fleetingly, Roxas knew the fight was over.

He smiled when he heard the sound of Axel's pistol firing off one bullet, then two, and then three…

_Stupid, you don't have to use the __entire__ clip, that's__—_

His thoughts faded along with both the sound of shots Axel was still firing (four, five, six…) and the sight of the man who decided to risk his own life for him; all so Roxas could escape the life he had come into.

His heart fluttered and stopped as his last breath left pale, bloodied lips.

He was free.

* * *

_Gotta end this, gotta stop it, gotta_ kill this bitch.

Everything protested and screamed in agony as he closed in on his gun. His feet, the carpeted floor, and the fact that he was losing blood all worked against him, making him trip over himself.

He'd honestly been through worse, but it had been a while.

His hand wrapped around the hilt of the gun and his eyes flickered over to the royal blue ones of the boy that he'd grown so fond of, that made him feel so sane.

At that moment he didn't _need_ sanity, but he felt obligated to check if Roxas was still there, still alive, still _with him_.

Roxas kept his eyes on him the whole time, watching his every move as his breaths came and went in short, hollow rasps.

_Gotta finish her_, save him.

His resolve grew stronger, made his legs solidify and carry him back over to Xion, the puppet, the girl, his friend, his _former_ friend.

Until she'd tried to kill them.

After she'd sunk a knife into Roxas' stomach and brushed past the boy to do the same to Axel, she became his latest victim.

Dark blue eyes widened as his arm raised and leveled the barrel of the gun with her head.

He pulled the trigger and blew those eyes away, replacing them with a big splatter of grey matter, skull chunks, blood, sinew, and even little bits of wire all over his living room floor.

He fired again and again, unloading every last bullet the clip had into her body, not stopping until he realized his gun was just clicking, not actually shooting.

He'd done it. She was dead.

Xion could have helped them, helped them kill the rest of the Organization (after all, he had killed Vexen for her) so all three of them could live in peace without having to look over their shoulders.

But in the end, she'd succumbed to Xemnas' brainwashing.

He walked over to Roxas, who still lay where Xion had left him, and kneeled down.

"Hey Roxas. You still with me?"

The blonde offered no reply, still staring blankly to the side.

Axel frowned.

"Roxas." He shook the boy, trying to get his attention. "Yoo-hoo! Earth to Roxy!"

He didn't even respond to the nickname. Normally, Axel would had gotten a reaction like a wrinkled nose or Roxas glaring and hitting him, saying, "Don't call me that!"

"Roxas."

Nothing.

"_Roxas_."

Still no reply.

He paused for a moment, contemplating on how to get Roxas' attention. There was one thing that Axel was _sure_ would work; the blonde wouldn't even _look_ at him for the next… year or two, but he was willing to take that risk.

"Hey Roxas. Remember when you first joined the Organization, how Xemnas owned up to having someone of our group kill your family? Well…" he rubbed the back of his neck and looked to the floor.

"It was me. I killed them. Xemnas wanted me to kill you, too. Said that I left a witness, that it was unacceptable. It was going to be either your heart or mine.

"But when I saw you on that park bench, miserable and grieving, I didn't want to. I felt like I would have ruined something… some_one_, so innocent and pure. Though, seeing how life in the Organization has affected you, I'd say I did that already. If I hadn't killed them, then you'd still be a normal teenage boy, unaware of the monsters that lurk in the darkness. You'd be scared, hearing the news on TV about another round of homicides that happened the night before somewhere in the country, maybe even near where you lived; but you'd be able to sleep in the comfort of your home and share that fear with your family. Maybe through them, you'd feel safe. Demyx wouldn't have found you and reported you to Xemnas, and you wouldn't be tethered to a psycho like me.

"But, at the same time, there's a selfish part of me that's happy it all happened like it did. Working with you, being with you, every moment spent with you, as cheesy as it sounds, has turned out to be the best year of my life.

"Never mind that, though." Axel shook his head, clearing his thoughts. "I'm sorry that all of this has happened to you because of me and I'm even sorrier that I kept my killing your family a secret from you for so long. When we get finished with all of this bullshit, I'll never keep another secret from you. I promise."

Even with the lengthy speech Axel gave, Roxas didn't respond, didn't do so much as blink.

Axel held two fingers to the boy's neck.

No pulse.

After all the fighting they had done, that *he* had done, they still managed to fail.

At least he was able to cut the puppet's strings, one way or another.

He closed Roxas' eyes and kissed his forehead.

"I'll make sure nothing ever comes from this," Axel whispered into the boy's hair.

Weary and worn, he got up from the ground and looked over to Xion's corpse. She'd used one of the knives meant for her missions to stab Roxas. If she had one of them, then she had more in stock.

"_Be prepared for anything; you never know if a mission is going to go wrong. Got it memorized, No. i?"_

He smiled bitterly as he examined the sides of her boots. There were still three knives left.

How ironic.

Axel grabbed all the knives and took the bolt cutters from the pack on Xion's waist.

_Looks like when I told her to be prepared, she really took it to heart__,_ he thought, looking at the tool and smiling a smile that almost seemed genuine.

It faded as he recalled what had gone on in the past fifteen minutes.

With renewed vigor, he got to work. He stripped Xion's corpse of her black jacket—she didn't need it anymore anyway—and hacked through her shirt and bra, exposing her chest.

The Y-shaped scar stuck out plain as day on her skin; how many times she Vexen had cut her open similar to the way Axel was now, he didn't want to know. Axel had done this sort of thing for eighteen months, and killing for longer; he wasn't about to grow a conscious that he'd actually listen to.

He dug the knife into her flesh and dragged it across the scarred tissue, following the lines like a perforation. After parting the skin flaps, Axel used the bolt cutters to cut apart the rib cage and expose the heart.

On a regular basis, he would have severed the veins and arteries at the mandatory three-quarters of an inch so he could remove the heart. Instead, he impaled the heart and violently jerked the knife out before repeating the process again, leaving deep, angry slashes in the heart's tissue.

Two knives left.

Satisfied with what he'd done and with his hands stained red (weren't they always?), Axel returned to Roxas' corpse.

At first, he just stood over him, feeling unable to move. But, he reminded himself, he *needed* to do this. Someone would no doubt be there soon.

He kneeled back down, pulled up Roxas' shirt and did to Roxas what he had done to Xion, up until he had the blonde's chest cavity open.

Rather than hacking and slashing away at the heart, Axel simply cut a deep 'X' into the organ, placed the knife inside the boy's chest, and pulled his shirt back down over his torso, covering his handiwork.

Which left him with one knife.

Axel turned the knife over in his palm, just looking at the shining, polished piece of metal.

There had been so many times in his life when he'd contemplated the act. In the end, it had never seemed worth it.

Even now, it didn't seem worth it.

He could live out the rest of his life, looking for the people dressed in black hoods.

He could live because Roxas didn't.

He could live just to piss Xemnas off.

But it wasn't about what he could live for. Axel felt his consciousness finally trying to slip away from the blood loss, adrenaline no longer there to keep him up.

Xion's accuracy with Axel had been less than desirable, not stabbing anything vital or that bled profusely (_Like in the stomach_, he thought grimly, eyeing Roxas' abdomen), but stabbing enough to make it hard to walk away.

He sunk the blade into his own chest, careful to aim so he pierced his heart.

Axel allowed his body to sway and collapse on the floor, eyes closing to welcome whatever embrace death had for him.

He couldn't help Roxas leave the Organization and kill the remaining members like he'd said he would.

He _could_, however, keep the Organization from collecting three hearts.

There were six billion people in the world, but like Xemnas had always said:

"Every heart counts."

* * *

**I'm _pretty_ sure Xemnas never said that, but w/e.**

**And because I know that there might be one person that wants to point this out: Axel killing Xion by _no means_ is me trying to bash her. I actually have a lot of sympathy for the poor girl, more so because of how some people in the fandom just think of her as a Mary Sue.**

**Just.**

**No.**

**Please no.**

**Anyway, I'll try to get the main story done (which is going to be called 'Merely a Puppet, guys, make sure to search for it every day and maybe even PM me and harass me to get it done. Just kidding. No seriously I'm kidding, don't do that it might actually piss me off), providing that IRL junk and my own muse allows me to. In the mean time _patience_ is needed.**


End file.
